Kill Jade
by The Bride
Summary: Revenge is never a straight line. (Based on Kill Bill by Quentin Tarantino)
1. Introductory Bullshit

Everyone said it was a good idea. But I disagreed. I thought it was the best one I'd ever had. And considering my mind set and the way people fed off of the shit that I spilled out, either from my pen or my own damned mouth, that was saying something. Considering the way I only talked down on myself, any inner appreciation was going to be a significant approval.  
  
Anj and I had finally, at Madison's insistence, watched Kill Bill. My conclusion? Tarantino was a fucking genius. There wasn't much more to it than that. Granted, the quality of our rip was shitty, but that's what you get when you're a poor college student downloading things for free off of whatever server you can get your firewalled hands on. Beggers can't be choosers. I never knew how true that was. You should have seen the version of The Butterfly Effect that I had. It was a cam rip, which in layman's terms, means one brave soul had enough balls to smuggle a video camera into a theater, set it up, and film the movie off of the damned projector screen as it was playing. Pick your jaws up off the floor, already. Like it's anything new? People will do anything to get something that shouldn't be available yet.   
  
Now, I'd seen some shitty rips before. The Matrix Revolutions was my first and utmost favorite, partly because Madison and I were so obsessed at the time that we couldn't possibly handle waiting five or six months for the bastard to come out on DVD.   
  
Five months? I had the thing on my C drive five days after its release date. I love connections, especially the ones you can't detect. My mother told me it was illegal. I told her nothing's illegal unless you get caught.   
  
I still believe in that now.  
  
But I'm off topic again. The point is that the only available version of The Butterfly Effect was a shaky, blurred version from a video camera with the scratchiest audio imaginable and a color quality that my former video tech teacher, Robert Bell, would have cringed at. I couldn't believe it. If you're going to pirate shit illegally, at least do a respectable job.  
  
Again, I'm off topic. I always get off onto tangents. My mother still has to fight to keep me on topic whenever we're trying to have a conversation. We'll be talking about school, I'll change to talking about my friends, she'll ask a question about one of said friends, and I'll take off instantly into another entirely different story that has some remote connection to the previous topic, which at this point is completely lost on me.   
  
See? There I go again. So before this gets any worse, I'm going to grab a Pepsi, slap myself across the mouth, and jump without any further bullshitting back into the night I was previously attempting to describe.   
  
Ow, that hurt.  
  
As I was attempting to say. The rip of Kill Bill claimed muffled audio and a darker quality image than I'd have liked, but it was acceptable. Anj and I got through it in just under two hours, and shared similar views about the whole damned thing. Fantastic camera angles, good story, strong actors, the whole deal. By the end of the night (technically, the morning, since it was two a.m. on a Sunday when we finished this) quotes from the script were on my away message and new icons were uploaded to my LiveJournal in addition to the Uma Thurman image on my desktop wallpaper.   
  
  
  
I get addicted to things very easily. This wasn't any sort of exception. Hell it was a live action anime. And I'd grown up on anime, animation, and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers simultaneously, adoring each in their own individual respects. Kill Bill was all of these and then more rolled into one, topped off with a sort of cosmopolitan flair that only Quentin could have managed.   
  
Quentin was definitely the man. Baz Luhrman had definite competition from this man. Then again, Moulin Rouge and Kill Bill really didn't have too much in common.   
  
There I go again.  
  
Now, you're probably wondering, how the Hell does this person intend to go anywhere by blabbering on about an illegally obtained movie involving mass slaughter and random inserts of animation? You're probably wondering who I am, where I'm from, and just what I'm drinking out of this Pepsi can, because you're probably relatively convinced that it isn't a soft drink, or rather, a soft drink without additions.  
  
Well, I'm happy to clarify.   
  
If I told you the entire story now, we'd be here far longer than needed. Besides, telling takes too much time. So I'm opting to show you. But I do warn you now, by the time you finish reading (or watching, depending on if this thing ever actually makes it to the silver screen), your opinion of me will most likely not be what it was when you first started. It will either be far more or far less, but I highly doubt it will remain the same. Then again, you could be the exception.   
  
There's always one of those somewhere.  
  
But I'm going to stop pissing around and get directly to the point. When everything began, I was a teenager in love, in every aspect of the term. It lasted for awhile, not without heartache and all the jazz that goes with it, because that was just supposed to be part of the way things were, right? Love bites, Def Leppard always sang, so I thought it was true.   
  
Sure, love bites. But love isn't supposed to maim and maul and deform. It isn't supposed to suck the tears from your eyes and re-deposit them back onto your face laced with mascara and makeup to dry there until morning. The person that claims to care about you isn't supposed to enjoy ripping your heart out on a regular basis.  
  
Right? No one's that heartless.   
  
Right?  
  
Yeah, I was that naive, too. Naive enough to believe no one could hurt a good person just for the sport of it. I never believed it was possible.   
  
Then I met the one girl that did.  
  
Yes, girl. I am a girl, she is a girl. You're about to embark into a lesbian love story, so if any of you share the same opinion of George W. Bush (yes, the man was president for a term, or possibly two – it's an election year) about gay marriages being things of the Devil and needing to be banished from the planet, then here's a nice big double dose of 'Fuck off' to you, and please proceed through your sheltered, close-minded lives accordingly. I don't have time for any shit, especially with crap like that which really doesn't matter. It wasn't about the gender of the person I loved.  
  
It was about the person that I loved. Love.   
  
Yeah, still trying to figure that one out.  
  
So the story is going to start in the present day instead of flashing back to the past, because there's no point in trying to dig up an actress to play the part of me two years ago, and I know that I'd get off on a million more tangents trying to start from the beginning. Which is why I'm taking this approach. We're going to start the day after my first viewing of Kill Bill.  
  
Madison was three doors down the hall, and relatively concerned about my mind set. Lunch in the university cafeteria (yes, we'll take to calling what they serve down there 'food') had consisted of my silence and her and Audrey trying to draw a smile out of me with talk of my future plans as a major director on Broadway. It wasn't working today. The object of my affection had struck again, this time at three in the morning, dropping another bombshell (this will all make sense soon, I promise) that left me with a silent demeanor and a broken heart for the countless numbered time. I wasn't someone that I would want to be around, but for the reason that they are and always will be 'my girls', they tolerated my nasty state of mood, even when I couldn't be cheered.  
  
But Madison and I are often on the same wavelength, and when we started talking through instant messages about the movie, I related some of what I'd been feeling to Uma Thurman's character of The Bride in Kill Bill. The rage, the anger, the desire for revenge at any cost because that was all that mattered. Of course in my story no one had died, but the underlying emotion was still there. Someone hurt me badly, therefore I wanted to hurt them back – only far worse than they had. Revenge doesn't always have to balance out.  
  
I'd been known to pour out my thoughts and feelings into writing, either typing or longhand. It was just how I coped with things. Madison knew this, of course. So it was her suggestion that I take my feelings and make it personal. It was a very good idea.  
  
What Madison probably didn't expect was that I was going to do just that.   
  
And that's where the story really is going to start. The setting is a college dorm room in the southwest region of the United States, in the middle of a relatively bitter winter month devoid of any chance of precipitation. Anj is gone for the moment, leaving me to my thoughts, and as always my gaze turns to rest and fall on the silver framed picture at my bedside, just behind the cell phone that has been silent all morning.   
  
The object of my affection, and the source of my frustration.   
  
Her name? Jade.  
  
My name?   
  
I can't very well disclose that sort of information, though I'm sure that a few of the people that know me from any sort of real life have already figured out my identity. I'm waiting for that very cell phone to spring to life with text messages and calls, my computer screen to be flooded with messages and inquiries as to whether or not I've really gone off the edge this time. But that's fine. The point is, I'm not going to tell you my name. Not now, not ever. That sort of information could put my family in danger, and I can't have that. I don't care about my own well-being, just that of the people I care about.  
  
So I won't use my name during this story, or at any other time. Instead, I'll use what Jade used to call me.  
  
During this tale, my name is Helen.  
  
And this is what happens when I go over the edge. 


	2. Jade And My Heart

Everything that goes awry starts out simple. For me, it started out with falling in love with Jade. Wouldn't I be the one that would fall for the most beautiful, charming, breathtaking girl that I'd ever met – and the one with the most cynical, angry outlook on life and the entire male gender as a whole. To sum all the shit up into one handful of words, she was everything that I wanted and hated at the same time, in the same moment. And that very thing made it incredibly difficult to distinguish whether I should stay with her or walk away.  
  
Then again, Jade and I never had anything that could remotely fall into the category of a relationship. The girl took and took and never gave anything in return, and I endured it because I was too much of a lovesick moron to figure out what was going on. That tends to be the case with love, but Jade took things to a new level. She didn't believe in being anything less than the best.  
  
To go into everything that happened over the course of the two years before my 'awakening' as it were would take longer than the rest of what happened, giving us a movie roughly as long as James Cameron's beloved Titanic, if not pushing to be a bit longer. And this is if the entire thing is modified for the silver screen. In books, no one cuts corners. So you're looking then at a volume about the size of Stephen King's The Stand. The unabridged version. So I'm not going to waste that much of your time. Instead, I'll condense.  
  
Jade met me, Jade seduced me. I fell in love with Jade. Jade had another girlfriend, Amanda, and a past love, Charlotte, who suddenly came back into the picture, presenting a relatively nasty problem for Jade who couldn't make up her mind. Jade and I fought, Jade got back together with Charlotte while still dating Amanda, I walked away for a span of time. Emotions got the better of me, Jade and I patched things up, Jade was still dating both Charlotte and Amanda while professing feelings for me and seducing Sarah, who at the time was my best friend.   
  
Sarah falls in love with Jade, Jade tells me that Sarah doesn't mean anything to her and only falls into the category of one of her fuck-them-and-leave-them girls, which can last anywhere from thirty minutes to twelve weeks, depending on Jade's attention span, which really isn't that great for the most part. In the meantime Jade and Amanda break up, Jade continues dating Charlotte, and begins dating Sarah. Of course neither Charlotte nor Sarah know about each other, each believing Jade is in love with them and them alone. Charlotte hated me because of what I felt for Jade, Sarah grew to hate me for the same reason. Jade promised both of them that she would never speak to me again.  
  
'Never speaking to me again' lasted about ten minutes.   
  
Jade and I started our own secret little affair of sorts, devoid of the romance at most times but filled with all of the secrecy. She confided in me the details of both relationships with Charlotte and Sarah because evidently she had no one else to go to, and I clenched my teeth because it killed me to hear the person I was in love with go on about being in love with two other people that weren't me.  
  
This continued for quite some time, and still is to this present moment. Jade falls in and out of love with Charlotte and Sarah respectively, while still remaining in relationships with both of them, unwilling to let either go.   
  
Where do I fit into this equation?   
  
Somewhere along the line, Jade decided that I belonged to her. I'm not talking about a romantic sense, either. I'm referring to as a possession, more of a pet than a person, someone to be there whenever she wanted them and to be quiet and out of sight when she was otherwise occupied. I wasn't allowed to have a life of my own, by Jade's standards. I had to remain entirely tied to her, regardless of what was going on elsewhere. I knew by Jade's words that she and I would never be together as I wanted, but she wasn't willing to let her grip loosen on me so I could pursue a life of happiness without her. She wanted me directly at her side, without any breathing room whatsoever.  
  
For awhile this was romantic. It lost its appeal when I realized just how much Jade cared.  
  
She didn't.   
  
Not at all. Jade couldn't care less about me, what happened to me, or what I was feeling. She only called to drop her worries on my back, or to tell me of which wonderful thing Charlotte or Sarah said last. When I needed her she wasn't there, when I wanted her I was told I was insane, and I realized how little love there was on her side of things. There wasn't any.  
  
Now understand that I'm a very patient person. I'll give someone that I love the moon and stars and ask if they want the sun to go with them. Jade was that and then some. I moved Heaven and Earth alike for her, dropped whatever I was doing when she needed me, and basically did whatever she asked whenever she asked, without question. And we're talking about some messed up shit here. Shit that I'm not going to put down into text for fear it might get out to someone that doesn't need to read it.   
  
Jade's going to be furious at me for writing this at all. At least I can soften the blow a bit.  
  
Somewhere in the middle of all of this, Jade took it upon herself to tell me that she'd been lying to me for the past two years about loving or caring for me at all. She said she did care, but only said she loved me so it would hurt me more later on. Of course as she was saying this it wasn't out of hurt, but rather out of her attempt at repentance. Or so she said. You can't really trust a liar, you know. Ever. Once they've lied to you once, it's so easy for them to do it again. And Jade loved lying to me.  
  
Of course that didn't stop me from being there for her. If anything I tolerated more than I had before, trying to make myself believe in what Jade was saying, that she did care and always had, that things just continually went wrong, that she never meant to hurt me. The typical bullshit that comes from caring too much about a person that really doesn't care about you. But of course you're too much in love to know that, right? You're too wrapped up in whatever you're feeling to realize you're feeling it alone – that whoever you're feeling it for really doesn't give a damn whether you breathe or die. Or if they do care, then it's only for their own sadistic pleasure. They don't care about you, only the pain that you're feeling.  
  
In short, I was in the process of coming to the conclusion that Jade didn't care about me at all. And that wasn't something I wanted to think on for very long.  
  
It took nights of crying, taking pills, cutting, and curling up in the laps of trusted friends before I realized what was really going on. And in fact it took one late night phone call from Jade herself to set me over the edge. The straw that finally broke my back. Thankfully, I'm not a camel.   
  
What was said in the phone call doesn't really matter now. I'm leaving a lot of details out for respect to privacy (yes, I still have that for Jade, despite everything), but I'll just say that it was the end of my rope. Something inside of me snapped at the realization that Jade was leaving in May to fly to see Sarah when she'd been promising me for months that she'd be with me at the end of May.  
  
Oops. Looks like I let the cat out of the bag. Oh, well.  
  
At any rate, that was the end of the line for me. Something inside of me snapped, and I felt every little ounce of anger that had been brewing inside of me boil over.  
  
And freeze.  
  
The Phantom of the Opera had become a newfound addiction for me over the past few days, and one quote rang its way through my mind at that point.  
  
"The tears I might have shed for your dark fate grow cold and turn to tears of hate."   
  
Nothing ever fit as well as that did in that one moment. I near to felt nothing but hatred then, hatred for the girl that had made me love her, only to reveal to me that she never cared in the first place. She enjoyed telling me that, why shouldn't I believe it? It was about time that I realized something was wrong here, and it was time for me to do something about it.  
  
I spent the rest of that night not sleeping, only staring at the ceiling of my dorm room in complete and utter insomnia. Anj was asleep across the room, and I envied her ability to tune things out in order to get rest. I was the type never able to put something out of my mind long enough to do anything beneficial for myself, thus why I spent that night and morning lost in thought of Jade fucking Sarah's brains out and enjoying every damned minute of it. More than once I was ill from the thought, physically ill, and fell out of bed in an attempt to make it to the bathroom before I was sick. Thankfully, I succeeded all of those times.   
  
Morning came, and with that my realization as to what I had to do. Thus, why the introduction to this entire story said everything that it did. It was the only way that this entire spiel could make sense. Setting the stage, you know.   
  
So I spent the time after writing the introduction to this tale sprawled on my back on my bed, again staring at the ceiling. Over and over I'd dissected this situation, trying to figure out ways around it, ways to stop Jade and Sarah from ever meeting, ways of trying to make Jade fall in love with me again, if she ever had been in the first place, ways to make myself into a femme fatale that couldn't be resisted. All of those insane dreams that everyone has at one point or another. And just like everyone else with those same thoughts, I was coming up with nothing. A big blank. I was a nineteen year-old college student with posters on my walls and Everlasting Gobstoppers next to my computer – what was I going to do about it?  
  
It's frightening how the best ideas sound like the most insane. I'm not insane, I promise. Nor was I ever. In fact, I was probably among the most sane of my friends. I was the resident medic and psychologist, always the one that people went to with emotional problems or physical ailments. For cramps, I handed over Advil Migraine in the green gel-cap form. For emotional problems or issues of the heart I diagnosed a place on my bed and my Hello Kitty pillow pal that everyone loved to hug as well as my ever-present ear to listen to whatever was wrong. And I'd offer advice as best as I could, being supportive and everything that someone with a problem could want.   
  
So you see, I'm really not a bad person. I'm probably one of the best people you'll ever meet. And no, I'm not flattering myself. I'm only telling what nearly everyone that's met me seems to believe. For some reason the world has the mental image that I'm a perfectly wonderful little angel, sent down from Heaven to make life easier on everyone whose life I touch.  
  
I know, doesn't it just make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?  
  
There goes another one of my damned tangents again. Apologies, I'm sure. Now, back to my brilliant idea.  
  
Really, it felt like pure genius. The simplicity of the idea didn't follow with the actions I wanted to take, though, and because of that I felt a moment of discouragement, wondering for a fleeting second if perhaps it wasn't really that good of an idea, if maybe I should just stop and let things take their natural course.  
  
That notion lasted, literally, less than a second.  
  
Jade had always told me she prided herself on having the utmost control over everything, being the puppet master (yes, she literally called herself that) pulling the strings of everyone that she knew, twisting and turning them to her will. And because of this, she envisioned herself the cause of everything that happened. It was all entirely Jade's game, and she loved admitting to that. It was the greatest thrill for her, controlling and then ruining the lives of other people.   
  
But I doubt Jade took the time to realize that she was truly responsible for the consequences of all of her actions. That everything she did was in fact connected to her and everyone else involved, and as a result of that she was the reason for every single outcome that took place. Not just the ones that worked into her favor, but the unfavorable ones as well. Every single thing that she coordinated, she was responsible for. And every end result was created by her hand.   
  
So therefore, by that reasoning, Jade will be responsible for everything that happens. I will have no guilt on my conscience, nor on my heart. Because I did not do what led up to all of this. No, it was entirely her doing. Maybe it was that thought that made me able to realize I could go through with the thoughts that had been coming to my mind. The mental images became far more vivid and vibrant, actually putting a smile on my face, and it was actually with that in mind that I sat up, crossing my legs to rest beneath me as I sat back on my heels.   
  
It was all so clear.   
  
I had to kill Jade. 


	3. Methods To Murder

Of course, it couldn't just be Jade. That would be too nice of me to do. One of the first things that stood out in my mind about Kill Bill was The Bride's theory on justice. Vernita and The Bride are standing in Vernita's kitchen after their opening fight, and Vernita says she understands why The Bride wants to get even – because Vernita fucked her over badly. And The Bride looks to Vernita with a tolerant, yet completely amused look, and says:  
  
"But that's where you're wrong, Vernita. I don't want to get even. To get even, even Steven. I would have to kill you, go into Nikki's room, kill her, then wait for your old man, Dr. Bell, to come home and kill him. That would make us even. No, my unborn daughter will just hafta be satisfied with your death at her mother's hands."  
  
No, I'm not going to work on grammatical errors. I'm going to leave Mister Tarantino's words as they are. The man is a genius. After all, it's he that made me realize all of this. The least I can do is leave his work in one piece.  
  
But you see, it's the truth. If I were to kill Jade and Jade alone, that wouldn't mean anything in the long run. So I kill the person that's ripped my heart out more times than anyone can count. So what? She goes on to some wonderful, lovely afterlife that she probably doesn't believe in anyway to dance without effort on clouds any human would kill to touch and look down at the still breathing figure of the girl that loved her more than anyone else (me, of course) sitting on Death Row, waiting for her chance to take a ride on the electric chair.   
  
Where's the justice in that?  
  
No, I couldn't let things go that easily. For Jade to truly pay for what she'd done to me – and I do mean everything that she'd ever done to me – I'd have to take things to a new level. I couldn't let anyone that had hurt me in the process of this walk away alive. This had to cover everyone and everything.   
  
So that narrowed it down to three.  
  
Not just Jade. Charlotte and Sarah, as well. After all, it wasn't as if they'd been anything along the lines of kind to me during all of this. No, Charlotte had taken it upon herself to laugh whenever Jade turned things around. And as for Sarah? Oh, Sarah was another story in herself.   
  
I'm not a person of hatred by any means. It takes something far greater than myself to make me hate another human being. In all my years of life I'd never truly hated before. I thought I had, but after careful analyzation of what I'd been feeling I could dismiss the whole damned thing as nothing more than hormones and emotional instability accompanied by a painfully strong dislike.   
  
That doesn't mean I'm incapable of hate. It just means no one was ever deserving enough of that intense of an emotion from me before.   
  
Sarah was the first.   
  
My best friend turned worst enemy. The girl that stole the love of my life through her twisting of my words and manipulations of my feelings (striking likeness to Jade, hm?), among too many other things to recount. Betrayal was too light a word for what she'd done to me. I knew I hated her far more than anyone else, though at times I questioned who I felt the more strongly for – her or Jade. It was a complex situation, wondering if I loved one person more than I hated another, or vice versa.   
  
But that was, again, beside the point. The point was that I hated Sarah. She was the only person in all the world that I felt true, undying hatred for. And for that, she simply couldn't be allowed to live. I'd lost count as to who had done more horrible things to me – Jade or Sarah – but it didn't matter.   
  
I'd take care of them both in the same way.  
  
Not the exact same way, of course. That wouldn't be poetic enough. No, this was going to take a careful amount of planning. One murder would have been hard enough, but three? Quite a different task.  
  
Oh, and did I forget to mention, all three of them live in different states? Across the entire continent?  
  
Priceline and Orbitz were going to become two of my closest friends.  
  
After a moment's consideration, I realized that wasn't going to be possible, either. In order to avoid detection, I couldn't use a credit card of any sorts. No debit, no checking, nothing that could leave a paper trail. Everything would have to be done over the counter and through cash. It was the safest means I could come up with. Granted, I'd probably not have to worry about anything being traced. The way I was planning to carry things out, no one would ever be able to make a connection to me. But still, I was one of those better-safe-than-sorry types.   
  
So cash it was.  
  
But that was going to be the simplest part of all. The more difficult side was getting everything together. Making it all fall into place. I had to choose when and where, and then how.   
  
The when and where, I wasn't worried about. The how had to be carefully decided.  
  
Something I couldn't decide alone.   
  
Swinging my feet onto the floor my socks brushed the coolness of the tile and I rummaged beneath my bed, looking for the slip-on house shoes that I kept for wearing around the dorm hallways. And then I took my keys and cell phone before padding down the hallway. Madison was only a few doors away, and I knew she'd know what to do.  
  
At least, she could provide some decent insight.  
  
I didn't bother to knock – no real reason to in a dorm. If your door's unlocked, anyone in the damned hall has a tendency to walk in unannounced, and at times uninvited. Sometimes they take a hint and leave you to your privacy, other times they either don't care or pretend to not notice. Either way, Madison usually left her door open, and I had yet to get a vibe of her not wanting me around when I came by. I had a reputation for being a damned hermit, so whenever I ventured down the hall, it was some sort of an event.  
  
As usual Madison was working her ass off, studying for one of the million classes I prided her on taking, and part of me wanted to shake my head and tell her to put down the fucking book for just five minutes to take some kind of break. But I knew the look I'd get for that move, the one-eyebrow-raised-'what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-you?' look that she gave to just about everyone at least once a day, whether it be for the hell of it or because they deserved it.  
  
This time I closed the door and sat in the chair in front of her computer, which caused her to look up. Audrey, her roommate, was apparently somewhere other than the room, and I made a mental note to possibly run this by her later as well. Audrey tended to be the more outgoing of the two while Madison looked analytically at something, then decided the best method of bitch slapping whatever fucking ass wipe pissed her off this time.  
  
They balanced each other out well.  
  
Madison watched me with slight curiosity, the book still open in her lap. "What's up?" she asked me, and by her tone I could tell she knew something wasn't right, but couldn't quite decipher what it was. I suppose the look in my eyes was something less than normal, and in fact it probably rested borderline on semi-insane.   
  
That was good. I liked being insane. It made things more interesting. Moments of insanity to me were the ones when things made the most sense, and I came to the immediate conclusion that the people labeled as insane were truly just smart – smarter than everyone else, to the point of where no one else could understand their logic. It wasn't that their logic was flawed, it was that it was too advanced for anyone else's mind.  
  
It made sense to me.  
  
"I need your help," I said simply, sitting halfway back in her chair without any real regard for posture, the way that I normally did when I just didn't give a shit. There wasn't really any point to formalities.  
  
"With?" Madison looked a little more curious now, and I detected a certain amount of uneasiness, not because of me but because of something she was seeing in my face. For someone that knew me relatively well, she was picking up on more than I'd thought she would. Oh, well. I wouldn't have to explain as much later on, then.  
  
"I've decided what I need to do about Jade." My voice was cool, and I saw Madison's eyes flicker and relax a bit, if for the reason that this was a conversation we had at least twice a day. I normally spent hours dwelling on the little things Jade would say in her spaced apart phone calls, concoct some newfangled plan of action that made sense only to me, and then run it by Madison, who in turn very calmly showed me the flaws in my logic, which nearly always had to do with my having no blame in a situation where I tried to take all of said guilt on my shoulders.  
  
Basically, she was ready for that.   
  
Oh, was she going to be surprised.  
  
"What's that?" Madison asked me in response, her book still open on her lap. Criminal justice, I thought idly, and another hint of a smile came to my mouth. Wouldn't it be a riot if Madison ended up being the lawyer presenting my case to a jury? 'Yes, Your Honor, Helen did commit those three murders, but it was a crime of passion' – followed by a long string of terminology that I'd never heard of, let alone be able to understand. The image was, for some reason or another, so comical to me that I had to actually sink my teeth into my lower lip to fight back a laugh.   
  
I was rewarded for this gesture with the eyebrow raise, and I calmed myself down as quickly as possible, though this time it proved to take quite an effort.  
  
"I think I've figured out the only possible way to take care of this," I said, still keeping the same tone of voice. "If anything, I'm surprised you didn't think of it sooner. It makes perfect sense."  
  
I thought I was trying her patience, but instead the sound of the book snapping closed was my response, and Madison sat forward a bit more, tilting her head to the left slightly as she watched me carefully. Carefully as Clarice might have watched Hannibal Lecter through plate glass, disturbed but fascinated.  
  
"And?" Her response was short and a question all at once.  
  
I smiled then, a true, full, genuine smile that reached my eyes and sent a serene look into them, an odd sort of calm falling over me. Because it was true. This was the only way. The only choice I had. And it made the most sense of all.  
  
"I'm going to kill Jade." 


	4. Planning And Consulting

Madison, being the psychology major that she was, stared levelly at me for about thirty full seconds in silence as though trying to decide between slapping me across the mouth or calling the nearest insane asylum to have me locked up before I could have the chance at hurting anyone. She didn't laugh or crack a smile, just watched me as levelly as she would under any other given circumstances. And I kept my face calm and every bit as level as hers, matching her gaze without daring to blink.  
  
Out of all of my friends, Madison was the first to know when I was serious.  
  
She was also the first to know when to stop me.  
  
Which is the reason I held my breath for a long moment, waiting for her reaction.  
  
Another pause, and then Madison shifted her position, setting her book to her side. Her legs were tucked beneath her, and she responded in a cool tone.  
  
"Who's first?"  
  
She could have been asking what time it was or which movie we were planning on seeing, for all the emotion that was in her voice. I nearly gaped at her with that, but decided that keeping to my dispassionate sort of behavior was going to be in my better interest for the time being.   
  
"Sarah." I nearly spat the name as I curled one leg beneath me, the other dangling loosely off of the chair, swinging idly back and forth at the knee. My left hand busied itself, twirling a strand of my hair around and around my index finger with the assistance of my middle one. It was a characteristic of mine, exhibited mainly whenever I was in thought. "The problem I'm running into is how. But I know she has to be first."  
  
"Not Jade?" Madison asked, watching me more intently now. She knew that I was serious, this much I was certain of, and I was relatively certain she'd become aware that talking me out of it was going to be next to impossible. At another time in my life I'd have been easily led astray from this idea, convinced in a moment's time that it was insanity and that I'd spend the greater part of my young and middle-aged life in prison for this, if not the rest of my existence.   
  
But something inside of me was different. I could feel it, and I felt that Madison could see it. There were idle threats, and then there were threats with passion behind them. Threats that weren't just threats, they were something more.  
  
Threats that were promises.  
  
I shook my head once, quickly. "No. Not Jade yet. That would be too simple. She'd enjoy that too much." Bitterness laced through my voice and I lightly pushed it downwards, quieting that emotion. There was no time for anger. I couldn't afford to waste energy on remorse now. I had to focus everything I had into getting to where I needed to be. Each task at hand needed my complete and total concentration. I couldn't give that if my mind was elsewhere.   
  
"Not yet," I said again, and this time my voice was completely steady. There, that wasn't so hard, was it? I asked myself. It wasn't so bad. "Sarah first. Then Charlotte, and then Jade. Just the three of them. I really don't have an agenda with anyone else."  
  
"The Bride had five. Are you sure you aren't missing anyone?" Madison asked me, and I almost smiled again. She picked up on the reference instantly, and I shouldn't have doubted she would.   
  
Another moment passed as I thought, this time far more carefully than I had before, considering, and then shook my head.   
  
"No, those are the only ones. Marina never did anything to me. If anything she was the one that tried to warn me against this from the start. She warned me that Jade would only break my heart, and I didn't listen to her. I have no reason to go after Jade's family. And as for the rest of Jade's little girlfriends, most of them knew to stay out of my way." With the exceptions of Charlotte and Sarah, Jade's affairs had been taught to keep mostly quiet, and away from me. I'll have to admit there was a time when Jade did a decent job of keeping me safe.   
  
Priorities suck, don't they?  
  
"You aren't going after her family?" Madison asked me, and I knew she was thinking of The Bride's first threat to Vernita, the same thing that had come to my mind initially as well. But I shook my head again, still staying by the same reasoning I had before.   
  
"No. If there's one thing I know about Jade, it's what matters to her. I know what I have planned for our meeting. But Charlotte and Sarah are the two people that mean a significant amount to Jade for various reasons. Besides," I said with a wry grin, "when I kill Jade, they'll just kill themselves. I'm doing them a favor, don't you think?"  
  
That comment was rewarded with the raised eyebrow again, and that time I did smirk, resting my arm on Madison's desk and the side of my head against the palm of my hand, watching her reactions now from a sideways tilt.   
  
Being deathly serious was fun. Especially when the reason you were so serious was, in fact, death.  
  
"When?" Madison's next question, and probably the only one I didn't have a specific answer to.   
  
"As soon as humanly possible," I replied easily, sitting upright again. "I have about four months before Jade is due to visit Sarah, and that simply can't happen. I can't well stop Charlotte's random treks to see Jade, but one step at a time. Jade cannot get on that plane." For a minute it seemed as though my voice belonged to someone else, and I actually had to pause. I liked this side of myself, the passionate side. Jade always chastised me for never having or showing emotion.   
  
The little that she knew!  
  
"All I need is a flight and a plan," I said levelly, "and I have one of those already. Will you drive me to the airport?"   
  
"As if you even had to ask," Madison said, arching both her eyebrows at me as though I'd just challenged the fact that the sun rose in the East. "But what's your plan?"  
  
The plan itself made me smile. Already I could feel that sadistic little curve to my mouth that gave even me the chills, twitching and turning its way upwards into a full smile. Oh, I had a plan, all right. A very thorough, thought out plan. I might have only recently developed the drive to carry it out, but that didn't mean the plan hadn't been brewing in the back of mine for months or years.   
  
I looked like a nice girl. It didn't mean I had nice thoughts.  
  
"The only thing I'm missing is a weapon," I continued, "and that's part of the reason I came to see you. I wanted your opinion. What should I carry?" For emphasis I held up my hands, palms forward first before turning them the opposite way. My eyebrows were raised faintly as though in question, and I watched Madison's face as she considered for a long moment.  
  
Finally she sat forward, standing up, and I followed suit by doing the same.   
  
"Get some real shoes on," she said, pointing downwards to my feet. "We have some shopping to do." 


	5. Liquid Diamonds

Madison's car never held the distinctive odor of cigarette smoke, even though she herself smoked at times, but I had never lit up any sort of tobacco product before. Now as we merged onto the interstate for the short drive to the spattering of stores that we could dare to call a shopping center I reached for the pack of cigarettes between us on the seats and drew one out for myself.   
  
"Lighter?" I asked as casually as I would if I'd done this sort of thing all my life.   
  
Another eyebrow arch in my direction.  
  
"You're going to make yourself sick," she said before clicking on her turn signal and shifting into the exit lane. A song I recognized vaguely was pounding from the speakers and Madison was dancing, the only way that a person in the driver's seat could dance and yet in a style that only she could pull off. She was one of those people that you either adored for what she could get away with or hated because you'd never be able to get away with those sorts of things yourself without coming off as a total ass.   
  
I chose the first option.  
  
"All right, all right," I said, pretending to be annoyed as I laughed, setting the unlit cigarette back inside the pack. "But after we find an instrument for kicking ass that suits my personality, I'm lighting one up with you."  
  
"Deal."  
  
Allow me to stress, first and foremost, that we did in fact live in the stereotype of a 'college town'. Meaning there was nothing else around except the university itself. And if you were a first-year student with no means of personal transportation (i.e. yours truly), you were basically screwed unless you made friends with a kind soul who had said coveted, personal transportation.  
  
Thankfully, I'm a relatively likeable person.  
  
Madison and I made 'the rounds', as we like to call them. Of course, by no means did we make our normal stops. We strayed away from our usual Wal-Mart and Barnes and Noble spots and kept to more selective tastes.  
  
For security purposes of those involved, in case this story is ever revealed to eyes or ears that are too smart for their own good, I'll refrain from including the actual names of where we stopped. I don't want innocent people who were only doing their jobs questioned because of my own personal agendas. But I will say that Madison and I stopped at about four different weapon suppliers before finding something that caught our eye.  
  
Rather, it screamed out for our attention.  
  
The shop was a smaller one, in the surrounding area by the mall and other convenient stores, so it was nothing out of the ordinary. I was expecting a secondhand sort of atmosphere, but the place actually appeared as a well-kept pawn shop with a more than decent variety of merchandise. Had it been any other day I would have immediately selected the knee high silver boots to go with the fur-trimmed pink suede coat hanging for all to see on the back wall, paired them with a skirt and called it an outfit.  
  
I could tell that Madison was experiencing similar feelings. Our tastes were similar, yet varied enough to where we never vied for the same article of clothing. And while again she was usually the one with the shorter attention span, this time she was the one snapping her fingers to get my attention.  
  
"Later, Helen. We have a job to do," Madison said levelly, meeting my eyes with that 'do-you-really-think-I-care?' look that never failed to get my attention. And I didn't disagree for a moment. She was right. Clothing could wait. I'd need something along those lines as well, but not now. Nodding without another word we changed direction, walking back this time towards the glass-encased counter at the back wall of the shop.   
  
A middle-aged man with painfully thinning hair was watching us through lowered glasses, but I watched his leer fall into a look of a surprise and then smooth into a professional sort of smile. His teeth were clenched a little too tightly, but that made me want to laugh again all the more. I don't care about what you're thinking, I thought smoothly, just about what's inside of that glass case.  
  
"What do you have in the line of swords?" Madison asked, her voice so formal that had it been any other time I would have needed to stifle laughter. But she was aware as much as I was that we were dealing with underhanded people that would easily try and con me out of money that I was going to need for travel. I couldn't afford to take chances.  
  
"Everything with a blade is in the case here," the man replied, slapping his palm against the top of the glass. At that I knelt down and peered through the transparent surface, biting lightly into my lower lip as I scanned through the gleaming and slightly dulled blades that lined the glass. It wasn't going to be a terribly long blade. I didn't need one of those for what I had in mind. It was a carefully designed plan, and I knew just what I would need for it.  
  
Madison's reflection came alongside mine, and together we scanned the gleaming rows of blades silently. Too long, too flashy, not sharp enough..nothing was working. Nothing was really speaking to me, as my mother would have said, and I was near to giving up.   
  
Breathing an inner sigh I sat back on my heels, pushing slightly as though in preparation to stand up, before Madison caught me by the wrist.  
  
"Helen." Her voice was level and calm, so calm that it stopped me in mid-movement, and I crouched back down beside her, curiosity in my eyes. She didn't look at me, though. Her eyes were focused on something inside the case. Questioning now even more than before, I followed her gaze –  
  
And coughed. Once. Harshly. My eyes widened so quickly that I thought they were going to spring from their sockets and attach to the plate glass in front of me. Madison's mouth curved into a smile then, lightly on the left side, and without looking at her I knew she was having the same thoughts I was.   
  
The object of our current attention focus looked like it came straight from some sort of samurai film and then fell into the hands of someone with very expensive taste. Rockefeller, I thought inanely, shaking my head once. The hilt was a metallic sort of silver, tinted with the faintest hint of a color that might have been pink, if that wasn't a completely ludicrous notion. The blade itself was near to as long as my forearm, sharpened to a point that could have more than likely done serious damage with the slightest of pressure from the wielder. But I don't think that was what had caught Madison's attention.   
  
No, it might have been the fact that the blade itself was shining.  
  
And I'm not talking newly-polished-silver shining. No, I'm talking shining like fucking crystal. That perfectly polished, clear, glimmering shit that you can hold up to the light and watch the rainbows sparkle inside of it. It was the weirdest damned thing I'd ever seen in my life.  
  
It looked as though the blade was made of liquid diamonds.  
  
Again, too bad that was ludicrous.   
  
"That's it," I said levelly, my voice quiet and calm. Madison looked at me then and nodded her agreement.   
  
At that point I did stand, and shifted my purse to rest on my other shoulder. Wallets held credit cards, not cash, I thought with a smile. And in this case I was planning more accordingly than I'd ever meant to. My parents would never think that I'd bought a blade at a thrift shop, but they wouldn't look twice at the charge on the card.   
  
Oh, the little deceptions.  
  
The card was clear with its lovely little blue holographic thing in the center that everyone looked at whenever I was about to make a charge. I always knew my father had to be experiencing some sort of attack of insanity to be giving me a credit card with that kind of limit on it.  
  
You know, the limit of the nonexistent kind.   
  
I looked directly into the greedy eyes of the man behind the counter and said two words that I never wanted to say in my life.  
  
"Charge it."  
  
I didn't even want to know the price. It didn't matter. What mattered was that I had finally found the perfect tool.   
  
And I already had the perfect plan. 


	6. Pink Leather

"Pink."  
  
Madison didn't say anything other than that single word, one single syllable, and it really didn't need any other explanation than itself. Our trek for this and that and the other thing had shifted to clothing now. I had the weapon. Now I needed to dress the part.  
  
"Are you sure?" I asked, sipping from the bottle of water I'd picked up inside the mall due to a serious, sudden thirst. Madison regarded me with the 'you'd-better-not-be-questioning-me' look and I cracked a smile, shaking my head once. Of course she was sure.   
  
"Of course, Helen. Anyway, you can't go yellow. Quentin Tarantino might catch on," Madison said with another eyebrow raise, and I laughed again with another shake of my head. It was true. Pink was my color.  
  
Pink and black, rather.  
  
Jade had always detested pink, but loved black. Her favorite thing was lace, particularly the black and red sorts, which had become the main reason I'd owned an outfit that I did. That bitch is still hanging in my closet, lovely as ever and always my favorite attention-snatcher. No one ever really believed that I, Helen, would purchase a corset.  
  
Oh, how I adored proving people wrong.  
  
Madison and I had started at one end of the city and moved to the other at a snail's pace. Neither one of us was really willing to give an inch where my outfit was concerned, rather we wanted to make sure it was perfect. As perfect as it could be. The perfect outfit for the perfect murder, I thought wryly, biting my lip to keep the smile that wanted to form from coming. It was almost frightening to me how much I was enjoying this.   
  
Definitely more than I should have been.  
  
One of those high class leather retailers became our next stop, and it was there that I fell in love with an article of clothing for the first time. Had I been an animated character, stars would have formed in my eyes.   
  
Imagine now, if you will. Mandarin collar, silver zippers, waist length, and leather.  
  
Oh, and pink.   
  
Barbie-doll pink. Not magenta or pinkish-red, but pink. That shade that could never be mistaken for any other color besides pink.   
  
In a matter of three seconds that bastard was off the hanger and on my person as I twirled once in front of the trio of full length mirrors in the back part of the store. My eyes were on my reflection and then shifted upwards to Madison's face in the center mirror.  
  
"Do I pass inspection?" My voice was smooth because I knew as well as she did that there was no denying how fantastic this jacket was. It was, in an aching sort of way, perfect. But only perfect for me. I was the only person that could pull this off, and I knew it.   
  
And Jade said I never had any self confidence!  
  
"Charge it," Madison said with a grin, and I laughed before replacing it onto the hanger and making once more for the credit card. It was going to be an expensive day, but nothing could match the price of the satisfaction I was going to receive.  
  
Once this was all over, that is.  
  
Under fifteen minutes later we left the leather store – we didn't walk, we fucking strutted from that place – and Madison looked to me with the eyebrow raise once more, only this time more in question.   
  
"Where to now?"   
  
I thought about this for a moment, then grinned before shifting the hanging bag containing my beautiful pink leather love to my other arm.  
  
"Chipotle," I replied, watching a smile break onto Madison's face. "It's been a long day." 


	7. Abject Confirmation

Airlines and I never had much of a good history. It wasn't even a love-hate relationship, it was more of an I-hate-you/I-hate-you-more thing. A contest to see which of us could piss the other off to a higher and greater level. Normally, the airline was the victor since I was bitch whipped into accepting whatever claimed to be the lowest price.  
  
Thankfully, Madison knew how to bitch slap the best airline rates out of the World Wide Web.  
  
Because of security reasons I of course couldn't book through the Internet, which would have been insanely convenient. But it was either pay an extra forty bones or risk getting tossed into the slammer for first degree murder convictions due to the fact that I was too much of a dumb fuck to not leave a paper trail.  
  
Even I'm not that dense.  
  
Again I sent a mental thank-you to my parents, this time for the debit card. Without that, I'd have been in many sorts of trouble. Honestly, had that been the case, I'd probably never have remotely considered doing anything this extreme.  
  
Luckily, that wasn't the case.  
  
Now I'll save you the boredom of reading about flight searches, frustration, further searches followed by heightening frustration, Madison's rapidly fraying temper, and then at long last a continual barrage of phone calls, upon which my flight was finally booked.   
  
My flight left the next morning with a connection in Las Vegas, which was something I didn't mind in the slightest. Vegas was my city, after all. One of them, at least. Disney World for adults, I thought with a laugh, which was how my father and I had referred to it.   
  
The little trek down Memory Lane was interrupted by Madison turning off the monitor on her computer screen, the indication that she was tired and ready to sleep. At this point, I couldn't argue.   
  
I got to my feet and made for the door, pausing halfway across the room before turning back.   
  
"Madison?"   
  
Insert eyebrow-raise here.  
  
"Thanks. For everything."   
  
I knew it was disgustingly inadequate for all that she'd done and been doing, but I didn't really have any other words that would fit. I wanted to thank her over and over again, but from the look on her face, I could tell she already knew what I meant.   
  
My eyes are known to give away exactly what I'm thinking.  
  
"Bueno," Madison said, and I laughed before leaving, closing the door behind me. She was my ride to the airport tomorrow, after all. We both needed our rest.  
  
As if that was going to happen.  
  
The room was empty when I closed the door behind me. Anj was gone again, off on one of her weekend trips that I envied her for being able to take. At this point, though, I was grateful for the silence. Not just the lack of noise, but the solitude. I needed to be as alone as I possibly could, granted that I was in a college dormitory, so I could collect my thoughts.   
  
I was crossing a line, I thought to myself, pacing back and forth a few times before settling onto my bed. This wasn't a game, it was hardcore reality. I was taking a step over that invisible line that I'd never thought I'd come within a hundred feet of, and once I went across I wasn't going to be able to go back. I'd be closing doors, giving up possibilities.   
  
Was this all worth it?   
  
I spent the rest of the night wondering this, wondering it through four episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (second season, of course), wondering as I read through The General's Daughter without comprehending what was happening, wondering through late night Disney television that played in the background as I packed a few things into an overnight bag, wondering as I hung the pink leather jacket on its hanger on my door before resting the blade beside it, and wondering again as I drifted to sleep, a process which took more hours than I was willing to count.  
  
I don't remember if I dreamed that night or not. Whatever the case, it's probably best that I couldn't remember. I didn't need any more ideas in my head at that point.  
  
The alarm was the nagging, obnoxious sound that woke me. And after switching it off, I rose the same way I would have on any other given day.   
  
Washed my face, brushed my teeth, popped the pills, put on the make-up, all before getting dressed.   
  
And all with Adema playing in the background.  
  
Normally I'm one for upbeat music to start off the day, but this time things were different.  
  
Any trace of doubt had been erased from my mind. I was going through with this.   
  
And why?  
  
  
  
Jade hadn't called the night before.   
  
That was really, sadly, all there was to it.  
  
I only spent fifteen minutes getting ready, and then another ten shutting off all the electronics in the room. There was no way to be certain how long I would be away, and the last thing I needed to return to was a smoldering dorm room.  
  
The jacket slid easily onto my shoulders, and I spent a minute looking at myself in the mirror, silently rather pleased.   
  
My suitcase stood upright by the end of my bed, fully packed.  
  
The cell phone was at my hip, and of course the blade had its place there as well, resting easily in a carrying case I'd made sure met airline regulations. I didn't want to think about the baggage claim for that one.  
  
I clicked the room light off before locking the door behind me. Madison was doing likewise a few doors away, but I didn't look up at her.   
  
Instead I slipped my sunglasses on, breathing a mental sigh.  
  
Today, or tomorrow, at the latest, my revenge could begin.  
  
  
  
Sarah would die. 


End file.
